Ilott Clinches Race Two Victory as Norris Takes Championship Lead

Callum Ilott kept the lead at the start of race two and survived an early safety car period to take his fifth victory of the 2017 FIA European Formula 3 Championship at Zandvoort on Sunday in commanding fashion.

After inheriting pole position thanks to Lando Norris’ grid penalty, the Prema Powerteam driver made a great start and was pulling a healthy lead on the opening lap before the safety car was deployed after Pedro Piquet ended up in the gravel trap.

Piquet was on the outside of his Van Amersfoort Racing team-mate Joey Mawson at Hugenholtzbocht when the two banged wheels, with the Brazilian coming off worse and ending up beached in the gravel. Mawson was also compromised, heading to the pits at the end of the lap for running repairs, but the Australian was able to rejoin at the rear of the field.

Ilott gapped the field superbly at the restart and edged away from Jake Hughes, who maintained his position at the start to take his fourth podium finish of the season for Hitech Grand Prix, although he was 7.371 seconds down on the race winner when the chequered flag flew.

Completing the podium and taking over the lead of the championship was Norris, who kept station behind Hughes, finishing 8.742 seconds off the win but importantly for the Carlin driver, four places better off than Maximilian Günther.

Harrison Newey made it a British driver 1-2-3-4 as the Van Amersfoort Racing driver held off the race long challenge of Motopark’s David Beckmann, while Ferdinand Habsburg did likewise ahead of Prema Powerteam’s Günther to claim sixth.

Following a drive-through penalty for Jehan Daruvala that saw the Indian racer drop out of the points, Guan Yu Zhou claimed eighth for Prema Powerteam ahead of team-mate Mick Schumacher, while Ralf Aron claimed the final point on offer for Hitech Grand Prix, just ahead of team-mate Nikita Mazepin and Motopark’s Joel Eriksson.